I'll start this off by saying there will definitely be shops on Arkadia. What I'd like to know is who is interested in shops, how many shops are necessary and what you'd love to see from shops. I'm open to suggestions for anything that involves retailing goods or services on Arkadia. Let us know what you think. Dave
Shops can be a good thing but the way they are set up on Calypso I rarely bother unless I am extremely bored and want to window shop. There are many things I dont like buut that is down to owners of the shop and how they operate. I guess the biggest thing I would LOVE to see is a centralised listing of active sales in these shops. It should show what shop the items are in. I know keeping up with general inventory of quick cycling items like amps and weapons would be a pain but for special gear It would make life soo much better the running for literally days to look at all the shops. Personally I dont think things like a mall is needed. Those were excess and to date STILL are yet to be utilized to full extent. I would say make maybe like a street in each major town that sprouts up sorta like the 5th avenue of the town. Have them located in one area. Limit numbers say maybe 20 shops per town to start and make them separate properties so the avg play can invest on their own and not at the mercy of an overly rich sponge who buys things and sits on them. Having cut n paste shops is boring and un productive to me. Set them up to vary in not only how much they can display but how they display it. Small shop with 100 tiny slots for things like amps or enhancers or things of that nature. Shops with 25 larger slots for weapons or armor. Make the looks vary along with what they could be used for and that will for sure liven up the "Feel" of the towns and not make it such a sterile environment we have on Calypso for this aspect of the game.
me None are necessary, and it all depends on the amount of items you can put up for sale. For example i have a depth enhancer shop in the Deer Mall, whcih holds 100 items. I sell stacks of 5,10, and 20 enhancers. I like to have 3 stacks of each so that customers always have something to buy. That alone is 3*3*10= 90 places. So a full shop. If you look at possible shops: -enhancers (split in weapon/armor/medical/mining): 4 -mining amps (low level and high level MA and OA): 4 -mining gear: 2 -low level hunting gear: 2 -high level hunting gear: 2 -evil resellers shop: 2 -hunting loot shop: 2 -mining loot shop: 2 -Crafted components shop: 2 -Armor shop: 1 -Clothing shop: 2 -housing shop: 2 -blueprint shop: 1 -skill shop: 2 -vehicle shop: 1 -pet shop: 1 -avatar beauty shop: 1 So about 30. Problem however is that most will end up with people that resell them or neglect them after a while. Maybe you could ask people that want to buy a shop for a business plan first? Or better yet hold a competition and give away some prime shops to the winners who have the best business plan -I would like a shop with enough natural light (wasting item point on lights so people can see your stuff is just annoying) -i would like to see shops in central places (not like deer mall for example) where people actually come -i like shops close to a tp, and close to each other (huge plus of malls) -i like shops to be open and well stocked Speaking of well stocked, how about an automated feature where you can add items in a queue. For example i have 10 oa-102's to sell. I put one in the store and the other 9 in a queue, this will take only 1 item point. As soon as my oa-102 is sold, the first one from the queue automatically gets added to the store ready for sale. That would prevent some shops from going empty. -I like shops that are exclusive (as in high fashion/ evil resellers with uber stuff/ furniture shops) -i like retail shops (high volumes, low prices) -I like shops without those annoying hallways (when going into a shop) where not a decent item can be sold -I would like to see a % MU when setting the price for an item in a shop -i hate it when you can get stuck in the walls of the shops
I agree, having a shopping street is way better then a plastic mall (and really wouldn't fit the theme of arkadia neither i hope). One thing to take into consideration however is loading times. All the items (especially signs with user created content) lag up the place a lot. So when designing a street with shops you have to make enough corners or something like that to make sure the loading time isn't too long.
Kitten wants shop! I have been run a shop in oxford deer for like 4 years as a soc shop and before the last year and a bit downturn it did really good and let us do some soc events like beacons. I would love to see a way for soc members or guest list or something be able to tt items to a shop storage XD Maybe a auto update searchable interface somewhere for shop items would really make shops compete with the auction. As it is now the auction overshadows the shops big time
that reminds me, it would be nice to be able to co-own a shop. Meaning that two or more people can sell stuf from it.
As much as I'm not a potential buyer for a shop at this stage I think these are good points.... From a purely consumers pov its the same as shopping IRL and I guess I'm a typical male when it comes to shopping,I like to get in and get it done asap.I hate going through multiple floors,the extra time it takes to tp to the next one isn't much but its still a pita. Its a annoying when it takes forever to actually get into a store just to see its mostly empty,the shops in the apartment foyers are good because you can tell straight away if there is anything worth going in to take a look at. As for the actual lay out-a square box might be boring but being able to stand in the middle of the store and see everything is a big plus.Split level would work but not double level like the CND stores. I picture a kind of modern strip mall/plaza with say 10-15 stores with big front windows (obviously not so you can see into the stores or you would have lag issues but so you can see out like the medusa apts) either side of a long central open space thats good for foot traffic and street trading with a few landmarks like a central fountain or the boxes at the old twins or the statue at the old PA. With lots of obstacles and bollards so people cant use it as a drag strip
These 2 quotes say it all for me Like I said in my Cities/Settlements thread, I want cities to be alive TJ
Very good ideas here but i have a wish too (dont know if you can realize it without MA) A function like the Eventlist.......where every shopowner can register his shop, with a short list of items, the place where are the shop, maybe prieces or offers to buy things .... so everyone can have a fast look at the list...knows the shops which have the things he need ......it would be cool no more longer running around and search for a little piece of texture or whatever Another great thing would be ; make the shopkeeper able to BUY things...like the order in auction like " buy ammount of xxxx oil or whatever to 102%" Trading would be more interesting and i think a lesser ammount of things would be tt'ed.....
Lots of good feedback here, thanks. I know many of the ideas might need work from both us (the planet partner) and Mindark. That is fine, we have a very good system where if we feel something is important and will add to the game we can request new features. The feature to stock in depth is something I also believe would add greatly to shops, especially those run by a crafter manufacturing limited gear. I lso like the idea from Milena to have a shopkeeper that can purchase goods for you, although I'm not sure how customers would know it was there (would help to get more ideas on that). Regarding the entrance hall on a shop, it is unfortunately a necessary evil to ensure you are not loading the contents of every shop you run past. A shop directory would be nice, I suppose it could be integrated as part of the ad system maybe. What if there was an NPC like the Auctioneer that was a shop directory, so place them in the service centres.
Well about the loading of items. Make the shop have a huge display(sign) instead of having the items actually on the display... Wouldnt that work?
Shops, booths and shopkeepers should be given the functionality to buy items. It would work very much like orders on the auction system (hence same program code could be used). So I could set my shopkeeper to buy Archaelogical Relic Artifact 1 at TT+20 peds and have given the peds to the shopkeeper. Also this could be used as a donation box if shopkeeper is set to buy with zero cost i.e. no TT or markup. Better would be to make an actual donation box which automatically has values preset so "buyer" and "seller" don't need to do anything apart from "seller"/donator dropping item in box. What I realy dislike about shops is the cramped space. Ideally for me no shop should be smaller than a football pitch. So should have plenty of space to walk not like shops on calypso which feel like your walkign into a coffin! There should be ranks of shops according to size and number of items: - land plot (this can be used to place shopkeeper or booth). So you could have plots available in a particular outdoor area where you want street traders or an open market to flourish. - Shopkeeper - Shop - Supermarket (much bigger than a shop e.g. 10x size of shop, could be privately owned by one individual or society owned allowing for soc members to sell items. Note item sold would go to the society member selling the item and not the society by default but can be set to go to whole soc i.e. split between all soc members). - Cash and Carry/Warehouse (could be 10x size of Supermarket). Could be set to society owned or individual. Excellent for selling spaceships, vehicles etc. Problem with the big shops i.e. supermarkets would be as in real life could kill the smaller shops. So maybe restrictions could be placed on supermarkets on what they can sell whereas no restrictions on smaller shops to hellp them compete...
As a shop customer I currently have two complaints about shops. 1) They are too spread out 2) They have a too diverse content This means that I would like to have all shops in at most one or two locations. This would probably be some kind of marketplace city which only focuses on this. As True Juan I'm a big fan of having specialized cities. Or a shop directory could be a good proxy instead. The content aspect is more tricky since that is more depending on the shop owner. There are way too many "hunting loot" or "10 most popular selling item" shops. Maybe some shops could only contain particular items to force more focused shops? I.e. to have more shops like SFE's armour shop that I really like. Also, I really like the idea of having "Supermarkets" that are society owned. This would be a good place for these random loot selling places. And a nice way to have shops that are owned by more than one person.
Oh that is a good idea, shops that are pre-destined to be an armor/gun/fap/enhancer/amp shop. That way we won't get too many boring shops. Shouldn't affect the price of a shop too much (goes down because you can only sell 1 sort of item, but goes up because of the exclusivity).
heh OR they could REALLY save on gfx workload and just not have shops but a long row of vending machines. Recycled cigarette machines would work perfect for mining and hunting amps. Toss some coins in a slot and pull a lever under the picture of the item you desire. Really tall machines with the corkscrew rods that slide items forward like snack machines only with tall slots for all the L rifles. A big box with a track system like at the dry cleaners could be used for armor. pree forward or back button till the item you desire shows up and the press buy for a basic model..then have an expensive one that has pictures and accurate progammed item placement like reading an auction for available selections and a window in front where item materialises after purchace. Get rid of shops altogether and go startrekish and have replicators.. dump yer materials needed in and get what ya want out. (ohh that could cure the crating issue with all the amp gamblers!!!)
Well you could let them work like banks. Shop owners can let them buy anything they want (owners just select the stuff they want, and the markup they are willing to pay, and the shopkeepers keeps buying till he is out of peds). Then the shop owner can put a sign up saying: Buying all oils/enmatters/ores/components/residue etc. etc. Let the shopowners do the marketing Also i would love it if customers could give feedback to shopowners ingame. So they can let you know if markup is too high/ certain other items are wanted, or bigger/lower stacks of items etc.
If I buy a shop it will have to be tax free. Otherwise I can just use the auction and pay auction fee. If that is not possible for "shops" on Arkadia then add "booths" without fees. If there is a tax&fee free opportunity to trade without p2p trade I'll most certainly invest in it on Arkadia.
That is now possible on Calypso with recent update that took out rents for shops and apartments. I would assume Arkadia would have same property rule set.
hmm well NDS decided to make a little more cash instead... but yes I hope Ozi will care enough about the economy of Arkadia to turn the taxes off. Well we'll see when the shops open.
